52 Flashes of Fiction: Week 26 – A Thing Has Happened

A thing has happened that I don’t want to write about. That’s a cruddy first line, for sure, but it’s important.

A beautiful thing came into being for me and has happened and has ended and I don’t want to tell you about it. It would make for a heartbreakingly meaningful sort of story, one that speaks of reality and vulnerability and fate and human nature but the truth is that I won’t write it.

We spend a lot of time trying to scratch meaning out of everyday stuff, writers do. I can spin a teacup into a symbol of mortality, a trip to the mailbox into a tragedy, no problem. But when a real diamond of truth gets dropped in our laps we don’t know what to do with it because we don’t want to share it. I don’t want to share it.

Part of it is that I’ll probably get it wrong, and all the processing and labor it would take to get it right would suck the juice right out of it. Part of it is that things lose meaning when you write them down. Part of it is fear of losing control of it. Part of it is doubt.

But part of it is that I just don’t want to. I want something to be mine entirely, something to die with me. Something so tiny and profound must be allowed to seal its roots in the place where its memory will be loved best, where no opinions or changing seasons can ruin its purity. A thing has happened to me that was wonderful, and broke my heart in the gentlest way possible, and somehow hurts and strengthens at the same time. If I told you about it you would understand, but only partially.

And you already know exactly what I mean when I won’t. I don’t have to tell you; you already know.